


Don't Miss Me (When I'm Falling)

by AetherSprite (AranthianPrincess)



Series: Don't Mini [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, M/M, Pre-Slash, Steve Needs a Hug, Tony Needs a Hug, Tony Stark Has A Heart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-27
Updated: 2016-01-27
Packaged: 2018-05-16 12:53:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5829664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AranthianPrincess/pseuds/AetherSprite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One of them is injured on the job. The other one is heartsick over it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Don't Miss Me (When I'm Falling)

**Author's Note:**

> For the injury/illness square on my bingo card. Except, I decided to be an overachiever and go for injury & illness, you know, for a certain definition of “illness.”

Tony watched in horror as he watched Steve plummet from the roof of a four story building. Why the hell he was up there in the first place, Tony didn't even care. He was falling, shoved over the edge by the villain-of-the-week's robots. Why were they fighting robots? The damn things weren't even that good to begin with. Tony could build better in his sleep, but the numbers they faced were clearly enough to momentarily overpower the Avengers' leader and one moment was more than enough.

Iron Man blasted through the mechanical mob surrounding him and took off into the air, ignoring his previous enemies for the new red-white-and-blue target falling through the air. There wasn't so much as a whimper over the comms, let alone a scream. Ever the strong, silent type even when streaking through the air to his death.

“Steve! STEVE!” Tony screamed over the comms, but he got no response. Were they somehow not functioning?

Then all that was blasted out of his mind when Steve slammed loudly into the asphalt, the sound both a hard crunch and a wet splat coming perfectly through the comms. It was the worst sound Tony had ever heard in his life and one he would never forget. It went perfectly hand-in-hand with the sight of Steve's bloodied, broken body lying in a small crater in the street.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Steve knew the situation was bad a minute in. Some of the robots could fly and one of them had managed to grab him while he was distracted. By the time Steve wrenched himself out of it's grip they had flown away from the center of the fray and Steve was forced to crash land on the roof of a four-story building. That wasn't the worst part. No, the worst part was the small army of robots lying in wait. Yeah, this was bad.

He did what he could, striking out with fists, feet, and shield to take as many down as he could, but they slowly overwhelmed him. Steve found himself steadily forced back toward the edge, losing ground at a terrifying clip. The rest of the team couldn't help him, tied up as they were with their own robot adversaries. He could tell by the chatter over the comms, mainly that it wasn't for humor, but filled with grunts and obscenities when a strike broke through someone's guard. No, there would be no help from that quarter.

And then Steve suddenly ran out of roof. His foot met empty air and he tumbled right over the edge. Someone screamed his name, but he was too busy plummeting toward the ground to answer or even make a sound. His brain worked overtime, first identifying the voice as Tony's, then calculating the probability that Iron Man would reach him in time. That thought was scrapped almost as soon as he thought it. Iron Man was fast, but he wouldn't make it in time to save Steve and his strategist's mind quickly came up with exactly zero other strategies to save his own life.

The next second Steve hit the ground in a burst of pain and everything went black.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Hours after they'd finally defeated the last of the robots and gotten Steve to a hospital Tony was sitting in one of those uncomfortable, plastic hospital visitor chairs. He didn't think he would ever forget the screaming the entire team could hear while they waited during Steve's surgery. When the doctors finally came to see them, looking to Tony in particular for some reason – Natasha told him later that Tony, or Iron Man, was the official second-in-command of the Avengers and Steve's only real possibility for next of kin – they told him that Steve's super soldier metabolism, helpful for shaking off drunkenness and attempted poisonings, also made nearly impossible to keep him sedated while they operated. Tony hated to think what Steve had gone through as the surgeons tried to put him back together. It reminded him unpleasantly of his own butchery-passing-for-surgery in a cave in Afghanistan.

Steve looked terrible, so pale and tense, even in sleep. Tony knew he had to still be in pain, but the surgery had finally knocked him out when his brain could no longer handle all the terrible sensations and shut itself down. Still, it couldn't be a restful sleep and it was nothing like being sedated. No, Steve was suffering even now while Tony sat watching helplessly, thinking that Captain America of all people did not deserve to spend time unconscious in a hospital.

Tony hoped fiercely that Steve never had to go through anything like that again.

If only he had been a little faster, Tony could have gotten there in time and saved Steve from all of it. It was all Tony's fault and he would never forgive himself.

“Please, Steve. Please wake up.”


End file.
